A missile and drone attack on a key military base in south Yemen has killed at least 30 troops, a Yemeni military spokesman said. It was one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s civil war in recent years.
Mohammed al-Naqib, the spokesman for Yemen’s southern forces, said the attack on Sunday on al-Anad airbase in the province of Lahj wounded at least 65. He said the casualty toll could rise since rescue teams were still clearing the site.
Footage from the scene showed several charred bodies on the ground with ambulance sirens blaring in the background.
Yemeni officials said at least three explosions took place at the airbase, which is held by the internationally recognised government. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels swept across much of the north and seized the capital, Sana’a, forcing the internationally recognised government into exile. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year on the side of the government.
A ballistic missile landed in the base’s training area, where dozens of troops were doing morning exercises, the officials said. Medics described a chaotic scene after the explosions, with soldiers carrying their wounded colleagues to safety, fearing another attack.
Soldier Nasser Saeed survived that attack and was taken along with other wounded people to the Naqib hospital in Aden. He said a barracks that housed more than 50 troops had been hit by missiles, then explosives-laden drones.
“We were able to shoot down one [drone],” he said. “Many were killed and wounded.”
Most of the wounded were taken to the nearby Ibn Khaldun hospital, where health officials said many of them were in a critical condition and had third-degree burns.
The officials blamed the Houthis for the attack on the base, once the site of US intelligence operations against al-Qaida’s powerful Yemeni affiliate. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief media.
The victims belong to the pro-government Giants Brigades, backed by the United Arab Emirates. The unit said in a statement that the attack involved a number of ballistic missiles and explosives-laden drones. The UAE is a main pillar of the Saudi-led coalition.
The military spokesman for the Houthis did not confirm or deny the attack, which carried the hallmarks of the Iranian-backed rebels. The Houthis have previously launched similar attacks, including one by a bomb-laden drone on al-Anad in January 2019 that killed six troops.
The rebels also launched a missile attack on the airport in the southern city of Aden in December as government officials arrived. That attack killed at least 25 people and wounded 110 others.
The Houthis had seized the al-Anad base in the months after their 2014 takeover of Sana’a, before government forces reclaimed it during the battle to reverse the gains of the rebels.
Moammar al-Iryani, the information minister, said the attack would undermine international efforts to establish a ceasefire in Yemen. “This terrorist attack affirms once again that the continuation of Houthi militia in the approach of military escalation,” he wrote on Twitter.
Sunday’s attack on the base came as the Houthi rebels face stiff resistance and are suffering heavy losses in their months-long attempt to take the crucial city of Marib from the internationally recognised government. Thousands of fighters, mostly from the Houthis, were killed in recent months in Marib.
The Houthi offensive on Marib, combined with an increase in missile and explosives-laden drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, came as international efforts to halt the fighting and relaunch talks between the warring parties intensify.
The stalemated conflict in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has killed more than 130,000 people and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.